POOR ELIJAH'S ALMANACKMore meaningful parent-teacher conferences

Peter Berger

Published 12:00 am, Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Parent conferences are a November tradition, although this year they're overshadowed by Hurricane Sandy and the equally windy Presidential campaign. Traditional, too, are website and magazine articles offering the secret to stress-free conferences or the ten essential questions to ask your child's teacher. These tenders of advice are usually even windier and less helpful than the stump speech gales blowing out of Ohio.

One former music teacher, now operating as an "education writer and consultant," introduces her "ideas for meaningful conferences" by describing the "worst" conference she ever attended, complete with bumper-to-bumper teacher tables in the gym, hundreds of parents waiting their turns, and a three-minute limit per conference. It does sound terrible, but the author concedes that most schools don't do things that way. In fact, I don't know any that do, if only because confidentiality is such a touchy subject that most administrators would see that kind of invitation to eavesdrop as an invitation to a lawsuit.

Before reviewing her prescriptions, let's talk about why and whether parents should attend conferences in the first place. When I was a kid, my parents never missed one. Occasionally, they'd learn something useful and often unflattering to me, but they didn't go for the information. They went because that was what good parents did, and they wanted to be good parents.

Today many parents attend for the same reason. Others have a particular concern they'd rather address in person than in writing or over the phone. Then there are the parents of the students that particularly concern teachers. The consultant objects when teachers remark to each other that "the parents we need to see don't show up." She contends that teachers "need to see all parents" and asks rhetorically, "Isn't our job enhancing the learning of all kids?"

Yes, that's my job, but a conference rarely helps me do it in any significant way, any more than it significantly helps parents do theirs. Every year I hear from entirely responsible parents who tell me they have no concerns and don't need a conference unless I feel we need to talk. If you're one of these parents, please know that I don't think less of you. Conferences aren't magical, and they aren't always necessary. I'm always willing to talk, but you can do your job, and I can do mine without our ever having to sit down together to confer about it.

Assuming, however, that we were to sit down, let's consider some of the consultant's helpful "ideas."

First, she argues that conferences definitely aren't for talking about grades. In fact, discussing them means we've "wasted time," and makes us "complicit in elevating grades above learning." This may make sense to a music teacher, but if you're teaching an academic subject, refusing to discuss grades is going to leave parents feeling they're the ones who've "wasted time." If grades reflect academic achievement, as they should, then they're part of talking about learning and what the student did or didn't do to earn the letter that appears on his report card.

She correctly asserts that conferences should involve "two-way communication." The fact is, though, that parents usually expect to hear about what's happening at school. That's why teachers usually do most of the talking. When parents have information about their child's academic progress, I'm certainly willing to hear it. But the consultant has in mind topics like how the child "enjoys spending free time" and what he "says about other students in the class."

I often talk to my students about their outside interests, but unless those interests mean a student is playing video games instead of doing homework, it's not what I need to discuss with his parents. I'm also not permitted to talk about other students in the class. See also confidentiality and lawsuits. A former teacher should know that.

Our consultant urges teachers to "share stories," especially "narratives of kids' behavior as learners." She offers as a "heartwarming" example the time her son's eighth grade English teacher showed her "sketches of cars" her son had drawn "in his journal during free-writing." The teacher's conference assessment, "Aren't these cool?" left her feeling the teacher was "paying attention" and "valued" her son's interests. Call me crazy, but I'd be asking an English teacher why my child was drawing pictures instead of writing in his writing journal. That's what I'd expect parents to ask me.

She concludes by suggesting that teachers tell the truth. So here it is. I'm willing every school day to talk to my students' parents. But when you divide the time allotted for conferences by the number of students I see, it amounts to around fifteen minutes per kid. That's why conferences are useful for an overview of a student's progress but insufficient to address significant problems. There also isn't time for a slideshow of the student's personal life.

Some parents are irrational and irresponsible, and some teachers are incompetent and unsympathetic. But I've attended countless conferences over the years, and most of the time everyone there, parents and teachers, took his job seriously and cared about the outcome for the child and the student.

That's the final truth and the good news.

Peter Berger teaches English in Weathersfield, Vermont. Poor Elijah would be pleased to answer letters addressed to him in care of the editor.